edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
1. The Goodyear staff fixed my car! It turns out that the front right corner of the under-engine shield had torn loose, so they trimmed off the useless part and refastened the rest with some zip-ties, as one does. Apparently the fender also got knocked a little loose, and couldn't be reattached with complete security because one of the connecting bits snapped off, but it's functional enough and fender replacements are expensive, so I will let it be for now.

I also got my windshield wipers replaced while I was there, because I had the money and they had gotten a little ragged, so why not.

2. Tonight's board meeting ran a bit long but not as long as we feared, and my minutes are in very nice shape if I do say so myself. I also helped formulate a long and complicated motion that we basically wrote in real-time... and volunteered myself for a project, which is less cool, but it needed doing and it's something I can do fairly easily (write a thing and give it to the administrator to send out to the congregation), so eh. I will manage.

3. Landlord Dude was unfortunately unable to come fix my kitchen sink today, but he promised to come tomorrow, so that's also manageable.

I intend to work 9am-6pm tomorrow to make up for being an hour late today (on account of car stuff), and therefore I believe I shall go fall into bed. :)
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Things since my last post:

1. Plate count at church on Sunday. It was super exciting. We got a whole [redacted] dollars. Anyway, I wrote up a deposit slip and left it for the congregational administrator to deal with.

2. All four apartments in my house lost heat late on Sunday afternoon, but fortunately Landlord Dude was able to fix the boiler after a few hours. Nonetheless, I have my tiny space heater out of its box and ready to plug in, just in case we have a recurrence.

3. Dropped my car keys in a toilet on Monday as I was leaving the Collegetown rental office. *headdesk* What even is my life.

4. Another thrill-a-minute shift at Not the IRS on Tuesday.

5. My alarm went off Wednesday morning, tried to get up, and my body was like, NOPE. So I called in sick to the rental company and went straight back to sleep until 2pm. I then got up and did basically nothing (with the exception of a small walk to pick up a library book on hold) and went back to bed at 9pm.

I dunno what that was, but according to my home test kit it wasn't Covid. And today I felt much more human -- just ordinary tired instead of noodle-joints, a struggle to keep my eyes open for five minutes at a go, and a general inability to focus.

6. Relatedly, I did not attend the special church Board meeting last night, because see above in re: struggling to keep my eyes open for five minutes at a time and general inability to focus. But another Board member very kindly took notes which I will review tomorrow in preparation for our next special meeting on Saturday morning. *sigh*

And now, I think, it is time once again to fall into bed.
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Things I have done this week:

1. The endless saga of photo editing continues. *flops disconsolately over desk* The problem with photo edits is that they are horribly, mind-numbingly tedious, and yet I can't just automate them by saying, "Kick up the light by 30, kick up the color by 50, increase clarity by 15" and so on, because every photo has a slightly (or strongly) different color balance and light-dark balance and so on. Also some of them are cockeyed. So I have to pay attention to every single one, but it's all fiddling with sliders and squinting doubtfully at my monitor in an attempt to determine whether changing the red-green balance or reducing highlights or whatever other alteration actually helps anything.

2. I continued prodding Mr. Geniality into recording voiceovers for the video tours we shot while his voice was gone. We have six left, plus one that I need to record myself because it was the second video I shot without him and the timing is deeply fucked up, so I figure that I will suffer through trying to narrate something useful. Also we recorded three more intro clips (one of us stands outside an apartment door and does a little "Welcome to such-and-such building, located [fill in place]. Brief description of building. Today we're going to see Apartment XXX, which is a [style of apartment] on the YYY floor. Let's head on in!") because while I kept a record of intro clips for apartments where Mr. Geniality did the tour, I neglected to keep track of apartments that needed intro clips where I narrated the tour. Whoops! But that is fixed now.

3. Last week I pinned a bunch of architectural blueprints to the wall in Mr. All Hat's unused apartment. (Insofar as I am aware, Mr. All Hat's company position is "brown-noser to Company Owner." As part of that, he gets a complimentary studio. We started using it for storage last year because fuck him, and after I cleaned up his mess (ewww) we also use it as a sample unit for tours.) I then took good digital photos of the blueprints -- both each floor as a whole, and every individual apartment -- and I have been using those to create nice clean floor plans for all the apartments that did not have extant floor plans, what the hell were they even DOING before I moved to the downtown office??? *headdesk* I can do about two a day, which I think is not bad considering my only graphics program is MS Paint. *double headdesk*

The thing is, I can't just clean up the blueprints, because they are not always up-to-date! So I need to check them against photos of the apartments to see what, if anything, has been changed, which direction doors actually open, and so on. If things have changed, I then have to draw new walls, move doors, delete closets, and otherwise rearrange things as needed, so there's a creative element as well as the general "turn a grainy, grayish drawing with occasional wobbly bits into a clean, readable, sharp-edged black and white diagram." It's more satisfying than photo edits, but equally tedious.

4. Prepping for a special board meeting on Wednesday, to discuss ministerial options and things we need to make sure get addressed in our meeting with a UUA representative next Saturday morning. The UUA rep was originally planning to come to Ithaca for the weekend and give our Sunday sermon, but given the Covid-19 situation, the UUA has imposed a travel ban on national staff. So our Saturday meeting will be on Zoom, and the sermon will be pre-recorded and inserted virtually into the service in whatever fashion makes most sense to the Celebrations committee.

5. Mom's birthday was Thursday! I sang her Happy Birthday over the phone. She has safely arrived in Minnesota and is staying with Nick. :)

6. Cat's birthday was Friday! I texted her Happy Birthday, and she said she had a great day. :) Hopefully the card I sent arrived today. (I should have mailed it at the same time I mailed Mom's card, but I was distracted and didn't remember until a few days later, oops.)

7. Mr. Geniality has decided to get back into a fitness routine as his New Year's resolution. I have never had a fitness routine, per se, and since I have had regular possession of a car, I don't walk nearly as much, which was previously my default exercise. Driving is really convenient so I don't think I'm magically going to start walking a lot again, but I do want to do some kind of activity.

What I really need is a gym buddy, but I have no idea where to find one. :/

And now I think I will go websurf a bit, because my brain is kind of fried from editing photos and floor plans all day. *wry*

a full day

Dec. 19th, 2021 11:56 pm
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
This Sunday I:

1. Ushered at the church service, which was in-person but masked and socially distanced and we checked everyone's temperature as they came in. Hopefully that was enough precautions. We have regretfully cancelled our Tuesday night Solstice ceremony, but the Christmas Eve afternoon pageant and evening candle services are still on for the moment.

We may have to swap back to virtual-only services in January, depending on how the Covid situation progresses.

2. Changed my linens and prepped for laundry, which I will deal with Monday night after work.

3. Bought groceries, including various baking supplies and some cheap plastic plates with a reindeer on them to serve as packaging. While I was at the grocery store, I found somebody's EBT card on the floor and turned it in to the customer service desk. Hopefully the person who lost the card was able to retrieve it!

4. Took a 1-hour nap.

5. Baked brownies, almond cake bars, and snickerdoodles, and then made up five plates to take to work tomorrow. They are for Mom Boss, Aunt Boss, Miss California, the Maintenance department at large, and Ms. Expansive (one of the concierges; the other, Ms. Fretful, is on vacation until January so I shall have to think of something else for her). Tomorrow I'll take in five more plates, for Mr. Geniality, Ms. Random Numbers, Ms. Rise-and-Shine, Lawyer Man, and the downtown Maintenance crew.

6. Collected my trash, took the bag to the bin, and then took the bin to the curb for pickup because it was finally full.

6. Made a list of people to whom I need to mail holiday cards. I will write the actual cards Monday evening, because I ran out of time today.

And now, bed!
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Things and stuff:

1. Saturday was a slow work day -- I did some photo edits and some emails, and also got asked to help jump-start a parking tenant's dead car, which was a first for me. It also reminded me that I don't yet have any jumper cables, so that has gone onto my Xmas/birthday wish list.

2. Hospitality team work at church this morning, which mostly involved A) getting items from a drawer, B) sitting at a table and helping a few people with nametags, and B) putting items back into drawers.

3. Took an afternoon nap, which was lovely. :)

4. 5:30pm wine and conversation Zoom gathering with my parents and their friend Mary. Nick was unable to attend due to recent illness, alas.

5. Speaking of Nick's illness! We don't know what it is, though my money is on some kind of ear infection -- he has fluid in his inner ear, as well as weird migraines and an inability to deal with screens or bright lights. Also maybe some fever? Anyway, he has been to urgent care twice so far. Steroids have not helped much, nor has Dramamine, and now he is on antibiotics which will hopefully produce some results. He was unable to schedule an appointment with any specialists until January (they are all booked solid), and he's having a bit of an anxiety/depression spiral. :(

Dad flew out to Minnesota this morning and will be staying in Nick's guest room indefinitely. Our current hope is that Nick gets better enough fast enough that either Dad can fly home and Nick drives to and from NJ for Xmas as planned, or else Dad carpools to NJ with Nick, carpools back to MN, and then catches a rescheduled flight home. We shall see.

6. I am currently working through my NY state required tax preparer courses, all four hours of nonsense. I want to get this done tonight so I can renew my NYTPRIN on Tuesday -- it usually takes 24 hours for completion of the courses to transfer to the NYTPRIN registration system, because computers and bureaucracy are an occasionally absurd mix.

7. On a related note, I have now taken my annual sexual harassment training for the rental company (NYS requirement), and my broader anti-discrimination and anti-harassment training for Not the IRS (combination of federal requirements and state requirement). So that's a thing that has happened.

8. In re: Yuletide, I will simply say BEARS and leave it at that. *wry*

And now back to training. *sigh*
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Things about today:

1. Mom and Dad left some stuff in my apartment and refrigerator overnight, and came by around 8:40 this morning to pick those items up and also help me with a car issue. See, a few weeks ago a warning/maintenance light came on, which I determined (via checking my manual) was the low tire pressure alert. So today Dad showed me how to check my tire pressure, and then we headed to a local gas station and he showed me how to refill them. It cost $1.50 for five minutes on the air machine, which is not bad. It turned out all four tires were about 10lbs low, but we got them all up where they should be and the indicator light duly turned itself off. And now I know how to handle that in the future. :)

2. Zoom church Board of Trustees executive session meeting at 11am, which I attended in and around answering various emails. We don't actually vote on anything during executive session, so this was mostly to discuss a situation and get a feel for everyone's perspective, in case there turned out to be an obstacle to a planned course of action. In the event, we are moving forward with that action.

3. I had one apartment showing in the afternoon, which turned out to be two apartments rather than three because one of the tenants had not received any of our notification emails, because they'd changed their email and we didn't have the updated address in our system. Alas! But I think it went reasonably well, and now I do have that updated email address for future use.

4. I spent a while pulling old architectural blueprints out of a cubbyhole filing structure and figuring out if they might be useful for my ongoing floor plan and building key plan project. A lot were useless, but I did find good plans for all floors of one of our main buildings, and moderately functional plans for three floors of another building. I still have not found ANY plans for the second floor of the latter building, but I found a good diagram for one individual apartment on that floor, which I guess is better than nothing. *sigh* I'll continue looking, and will bring a bunch of paper, tape, and a pen with me to label a lot of the currently anonymous rolled documents.

5. Listened to the latest Enthusigasm episode, about writing. :)

And that's about it.
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Things of note today:

1. Various work tasks, such as writing a renewal lease, scheduling some apartment tours, editing photos, emailing tenants who were affected by a package thief over the weekend, etc.

2. TWO AND A HALF HOURS OF BOARD MEETING, oh god kill everything with fire.

At least I have the minutes 100% done?

(I was able to whip the minutes into shape during the meeting because the final ~40 minutes were an executive session. Our policy is not to take minutes of executive sessions because A) confidentiality is a thing and B) we do not make business decisions in executive session; they're solely for discussion. So I tidied everything up and added all the relevant hyperlinks while keeping 2/3 of an ear on the conversation and occasionally pitching in, instead of having do those cleanup bits after the fact.)

3. My fancy socks arrived via the mail!!! They are all lovely, and I think I may actually manage to do laundry in a timely fashion this coming weekend, if only so I can wear all my wonderful new socks next week.

4. My second package of earring supplies (various hooks and jump rings) arrived, which means I can now get to work on fixing up various earrings whose hooks are less than ideal and turning some post earrings into hook earrings. :) Also my stash is replenished for future needs.

5. Listened to the most recent episode of Sawbones, about arsenic wallpaper.
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Things done today:

1. Gave blood \o/

2. Bought groceries.

3. Took an afternoon nap, which was lovely.

4. Zoom book club meeting via my church. This is specifically a book club for reading and discussing books related to social justice, which I joined a couple weeks ago. This month's book was Defund Fear: Safety Without Policing, Prisons, and Punishment by Zach Norris.

We got onto the subject of Ithaca and Tompkins County's new Reimagining Public Safety project, which I must look into further.

Next month we are reading Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want by Frances Moore Lappé and Adam Eichen. I have purchased an ebook copy. :)

5. Tidied my fridge and disposed of some leftover mashed potatoes that had gone weirdly rancid/fermented, blegh.

6. Listened to the Patreon early release of Rusty Quill Gaming episode 216, which was entirely a fight scene because we're in the middle of the final battle and I believe the series is slated to end with episode 218. (We have been promised some epilogue material, but still!) *bites nails for next week*
edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
I think this is the longest I've gone without posting in this journal since I started it. Where does the time go?

In summary, life has just kind of been A Lot lately -- no one thing in specific, but a lot of smaller things piling on top of each other, to wit:

1. My work schedule was disrupted for a week because Mom Boss and Aunt Boss were on vacation simultaneously and our most recent New Hire had quit (long story short, her computer skills were not up to snuff and she found the office too fast-paced, which, okay) so I had to lend Miss California a hand and let Mr. Geniality cover the leasing end of the downtown office on his own.

2. Church continues to be All The Things, All The Time, since we have parted ways with our interim minister (it was just not working out for reasons I cannot tell you because confidentiality is a thing) and now the Board is working overtime to figure out who should fill those areas of responsibility, and how to make everything work more or less smoothly. Also we have cautiously started to resume in-person Sunday services, which has been an interesting shake-down process.

3. I spent a couple days trying to sort out some car loan paperwork for my parents, since apparently Dad co-signing the loan with me means it has suddenly become relevant to their ability to finance a mortgage when they move to Minnesota next year. I dunno, banks are weird. Anyway, I was finally able to persuade the CFCU website to let me set up online access to my loan and one of the screenshots and pdfs I sent Dad seems to have satisfied his bank.

4. I think I may have had a mild blue funk, judging by the general fadeaway quality of my interaction with the world. Also my sleep schedule got completely borked, which I am only just now correcting.

...

I went to a lovely concert on Wednesday night, by NYS Baroque. It was Italian music from the late 14th and early 15th centuries: lute, viele, tenor, countertenor, and multi-instrumentalist (continental bagpipes, soprano and alto recorder, medieval harp (two rows of strings!), and shawm). It was originally scheduled for March 2020 but was cancelled due to Covid-19, so I was very pleased to learn all the musicians were able to make it happen after all. :)

On Thursday evening I intended to give blood, but when I arrived at the donation site they turned me away because apparently they'd had such a good turnout that they were out of blood bags and such. So I have rescheduled for Tuesday.

Before the Wednesday concert, I attended an online paid-training session for Not the IRS, because we are kicking into that part of the season. The other courses should mostly become available on November 29, but I think a few may be available now.

And that's about it.
edenfalling: golden flaming chalice in a double circle (gold chalice)
On the one hand, I knocked the minutes template into shape before tonight's Board meeting, AND filled in all the handout links, which is a point in the "Liz is prepared!" column.

On the other hand, I forgot I would need to bring my laptop, and then had to skip out of work a few minutes early in order to dash home, grab my computer, and then dash off to church by way of purchasing a BLT for dinner, which is very definitely a point in the "Liz is NOT prepared" column. *sigh*

Ah well, I suppose it all comes out in the wash.

...

I really need to go tweak the base minutes template document to match our current meeting agenda flow so I don't have to manually tweak each new template in each new meeting G-doc folder. But I think that is a task for future!Liz.

...

I am rambling because I really want to flop on my bed and scream because of Reasons Relating To Society Governance, but that would be very rude to my neighbors and I can't tell any details to anyone outside the Board because of confidentiality.

So just please take this as me screaming in intense frustration, okay? Good.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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edenfalling: stylized black-and-white line art of a sunset over water (Default)
Elizabeth Culmer

July 2025

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